


Cycle

by tsuruko (orphan_account)



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Sexual Content, post-murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1361035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tsuruko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t make eye contact, and don’t have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> This is really self-indulgent but I can't stop thinking about it. 
> 
> When Francis explains to Richard that he and Charles have gone to bed together, he skips a few minor details.

They were drunk. Rather, Charles was drunk. So much so that Francis himself felt more inebriated than the swallow of whiskey would have normally allowed. The presence—nevermind the scent—of the man beside him was more than enough to have his mind wrapped up in Charles’s rosy scarf while they walked, silently, side-by-side, through the cold April morning. Walks like these only occurred when Charles was as drunk as he presently was, and Francis, struggling with his clamouring set of keys, fleetingly wondered if _this_ instance, _this_ trip home, was because neither of them really wanted to be asleep nor alone. He drops the thought when his keys hit the floor once the door clicks softly shut behind them.

Charles toes off his shoes, intending to stay even if Francis had solely planned on dressing for Greek later that morning. Francis watches as Charles drops his jacket and scarf to the floor atop his keys with a sidelong glance. They don’t make eye contact, and don’t have to. Charles takes a single step toward Francis and the latter male finds his shoulder-blades cutting into wall of his small foyer. His eyes, bright even in the dark, are caught resolutely on the patch of skin where Francis’s jawbone meets his neck and Francis waits only a moment before Charles blinks his attention to just below Francis’s left eye and kisses him with shocking intensity, their lips chapped and swelling quickly with the contact.

One of them inhales, neither is sure which, and Francis’s hands drift to Charles’s hips, steadying him while he sways drunkenly. They’re so close and Francis feels overly warm. He wants to pull away, but Charles nips at his lower lip and he wobbles a bit himself. One of them moves, and this time they both know it’s Charles. He shifts his thigh between Francis’s, nudging him, and Charles stumbles down against the bed before Francis can register that they’ve somehow arrived in his bedroom.

The world around them slows and Francis starts to feel drunk when he leans down to reacquaint their mouths: the sweet, malted taste to Charles’s makes Francis’s head spin while they kiss and fumble with the buttons of shirts and pants, fabric rustling while they right themselves. Outside, a car rushes by and honks once. Charles shivers.

“Charles…” Francis says in the dark, his sight fuzzy but he can make out the hard angle of the other man’s jaw, face turned to the blinds over the window, one broken at the end. His tone is neutral, as if commenting on the weather. He doesn’t know what he was hedging at, and neither of them seem to want to speak about anything much further.

Francis kisses him for the third time that evening and that kiss doesn’t end as hurriedly as the former two had. Seconds pass and they’re wrapped in the sheets, Charles pressing clammy fingertips into Francis’s back while he makes an almost needy sound in the back of his throat. Charles is the only person that moans like this for Francis and it does something strange to his mind, clouds it while he fucks into him and he can’t quite think or breathe when they’re tangled together. Charles’s neck flushes when Francis’s cock stretches him and he leaves teeth marks in his lower lip. Moans mingle with Francis’s name and he ducks his head down, wanting more than anything to leave marks on Charles’s pale skin. There can’t be anything left behind: Charles dismisses something as tangible the soreness hours after.

They make eye contact accidentally, Charles eyes dark now, overcast in the way that only Francis observes and Charles’s muscles go taut. Francis inhales sharply and forgets, for the longest moment he has ever endured, that he _could_ look away if he remembers how to turn his head but they’re caught there, and it isn’t until Charles his panting, sleepy-eyed and reaching for a cigarette on Francis’s bedside table that he realizes his arms are shaky and he needs to lie down for a while.

Charles runs a hand through the hair that’s damp against Francis’s forehead and their eyes don’t meet again. He speaks around the cigarette that they both need to bathe and flicks the ashes into a teacup on the table, asks if he can borrow a bit of cologne, no, he’s sure no one will notice or care, and Francis doesn’t know what he expected this time.

 


End file.
